Breaking Down Barriers
Supporting Community Engagement and Effective Science Communication
Supporting Community Engagement and Effective Science Communication
We have discontinued the Breaking Down Barriers program but will continue to make available its web resources. If you have questions, please email us.
Misconceptions about evolution are addressed in Geology Park as participants must travel a scaled model of deep time. In addition to exploring the radiations of important phylogenetic groups, participants can also collect data useful in reconstructing the past. These include measuring oxygen and carbon dioxide concentrations, assessing the position of continents, and even counting the relative cover of different groups of plants.
Geology Park is an immersive game that lets families and adults time travel back to the Permian-Triassic extinction and throughout the Phanerozoic to recover escaped Permian creatures. A strong narrative drives the story and the participants' exploration forward and creates multiple opportunities for further engagement. This activity has three levels; participants can have experiences lasting between 15 minutes and one hour.